Fidel Ramos quits as special envoy to China

President Rodrigo R. Duterte and Former President Fidel V. Ramos. KING RODRIGUEZ/PPD

Former President Fidel Ramos on Monday said he had resigned as the Duterte administration’s special envoy to China, according to a report by GMA News.

Ramos said he resigned when President Rodrigo Duterte returned to the country from a state visit to China. He confirmed the news on Monday when he paid his respects to the late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej at the Royal Thai Embassy in Makati.

Ramos accepted the post in July, in the wake of the Philippines’ historic victory in the United Nations-backed arbitral tribunal in The Hague, which invalidated China’s claims to almost all of the resource-rich South China Sea.

Recently, Ramos has criticized Duterte and his Cabinet in a series of strongly worded opinion pieces in a Manila broadsheet—the latest of which being about the President’s continuous refusal to ratify the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The former president once likened the Philippines to a “sinking ship” under Duterte’s leadership.

Ramos has also voiced his opposition to Duterte’s “separation” and repeated tirades against the United States amid an apparent tilt toward China.

But Ramos said the administration should take his criticisms as “brotherly advice.”

Duterte’s state visit to Beijing saw him and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreeing to bilateral talks over maritime disputes amid overlapping claims, a major turnaround from the previous administration’s stand of engaging only in multilateral talks. The Philippine delegation also brought home billions worth of investments and credit pledges from the visit. JE